Archive for the Bike Category

Decide to stay in bed all day.
Decide to have a Wes Anderson marathon.
Decide to clean your entire apartment.
Decide not to do any of these things.
Answer the phone.
Fight.
Hang up.
Answer the phone.
Fight.
Hang up.
Give in to the urge to text your friends to let them know.
Receive encouraging texts back.
Forget to eat.
Call a friend.
Call another friend.
Play guitar.
Get some more encouraging texts.
Remember to eat.
Ride a bike.
Visit parents’ house.
Write a blog post.
(To be continued…)

Ok, I know I said that you should go ahead and rain. But seriously? It was sunny when I rode my bike to the grocery store. I was in there…10 minutes at the most. It was dark and raining when I got out.

It’s OK…I get it. It was pretty funny, actually. Especially when I applied my back brake and started to fishtail while in traffic. Funny stuff, that.

Sincerely,

jay

P.S. That part when I got onto my street and then it started pouring? Nice touch.

Ok…last post, I talked about finding the ruins of Mother Goose Land in Canton, Ohio. However, without any sort of context, that story is really pretty meaningless.

Honestly, most of my memories of the place come from pictures. If you ask me about the park, I remember seeing the whale, and I remember falling off of a firetruck they had on display, and that’s about it. However, when I hear other people talk about it, or when I look at the pictures, memories come flooding back. Here is what I remember about the park:

This is right outside the park. I’m the one in the green shirt. This wall is not there anymore.

We’re not in Canton anymore…

Here’s a pic of Willie the Whale in all his glory…

And here are my brother and I visiting Willie!

So, the other day, I went back to visit the park and get some decent shots. Here’s what I saw…

Under the bridge that leads there. Ominous.

The gate is locked. Luckily, the bike path runs around the gate. No trespassing? Try to stop me!

Willie!!!!

On the other side, some of the buildings still stand. I heard that this side of the park became an armory for a while after the park closed.

More buildings.

It’s weird going back there and seeing the entire park gutted. Still, I’m glad they left the whale and a few buildings as a monument to what used to be…

Yesterday, I took that trail I was talking about last week (the one I took pics from) with the intention of riding through Stadium Park. I figured, what with the speed limit being about 20MPH in most of the part (and 10MPH in other parts), it would be a safe ride on the roads there. I was surprised, however, to find that the bike path that I had heard was planned for the park was actually just about complete, so the trip was much easier than it could have been.

Stadium Park was pretty uneventful (though very busy…a lot of people use the park system there!), but as I was turning around, I realized that accross the street, at Monument Park, the trail continued.

Again, Monument was busy, but the trail was nice and not too hard to ride on. When I made it through Monument, I was happy to find that the trail continued through Waterworks Park.

This is where the story gets interesting. I followed the trail through Waterworks until it passed under a bridge. Now, this place looked like the kind of place where you’d get mugged at night…the path turns a corner under the bridge, so vivibility is limited, and it’s between two hills, so you can’t really see the street from it. I decided to brave it and see what was on the other side of the bridge anyway, and I found…

…the ruins of Mother Goose Land!!!

For those who don’t know, Mother Goose Land was a small theme park in Canton that closed down in th eearly-to-mid eighties. I have lots of pictures of my brother and I at Mother Goose Land when I was about 6 years old, back when it was still in operation. The otter and I had always joked about trying to find the whale, because we knew that it’s the last remaining part of Mother Goose Land still standing except for one building that was turned into some sort of armory.

I’ll admit, when I came out from under the bridge and saw Willie the Blue Whale there, I got a little choked up. I’m going to go back soon with a real camera (that pic is from my phone) and get some better pictures.

Anyway, if anyone wants to go for a bike ride in Canton, the Stadium/Monument/Waterworks park system has a great trail with a prize at the end!

On Friday, I decided to ride my bike to work! I live about 4 miles away from work, so it’s not that long of a ride. Or rather, it wasn’t supposed to be.

See, my problem is that I have no direction sense. I thought that I was going to save some time and take a short cut, but I was wrong. I ended up 4 miles out of my way. So yes, I got lost on the way to a place that I go to almost every day and have gone to for the last 5 years.

Here’s what I said about it on Twitter…read from bottom to top:

While on the ride, I noticed that I didn’t have access to one of the gears. Well, I thought that I would take my DIY a step further and adjust the derailleur on my bike. I watched videos on line, got out my tools, and…FAIL. I messed the derailleur up worse than it was before.

Yesterday, in a fit of confidence and DIYedness, I decided to fix my bike. You see, the otter bought me an almost-new bike; it had only been ridden once or twice, and looked brand new. The problem was that the brakes were way misaligned, to the point of being dangerous.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not at all mechanically inclined, so I thought I would have to take it to the shop to have it fixed. However, as I said, yesterday I decided to get on the internet, look up instructions, and fix the brakes myself.

After fixing them, I rode for about 12 miles: I rode to Target to look for a helmet mirror (which I didn’t buy), I rode to the Strip to get a giftcard from the movie theater for my dad (for Father’s Day), and I just generally rode around.

I stopped back home to get my camera before exploring the new bike trail right down the street from me…

Here I am starting on the trail…

The trail itself…

A river runs through it. Well..OK, a creek runs through it.

A train runs through it, too!

Anyway, I haven’t really ridden a bike in 15 years (I USED to ride about 10 miles a day!), so making it 12 miles yesterday without killing myself or collapsing with exhaustion is a pretty big deal for me! Plus, I’m not even sore this morning! I guess I’m in better shape than I thought!